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Diesel particulate filters (DPF) are now a mandatory part in diesel exhaust aftertreatment systems in order to achieve compliance with current emission legislations. However future demands for further NOx and CO₂ reductions combined with a maximum amount of allowed particle numbers per ccm lead to special requirements for the DPF substrate material. On the one hand high filtration efficiency of soot particles in the nanometer scale has to be reached and on the other hand high porosities and large pore sizes have to be realized to support catalytic coating. In order to have a base material composition which can easily be modified to meet current and future demands a new SiC substrate, called XP-SiC, was developed. The technology of the XP-SiC is based on a reaction forming process of coextruded silicon and carbon particles to SiC. This new manufacturing process leads to a unique microstructure with a sponge-like appearance and a high porosity in the range of 50% - 70%.

XP-SiC is an innovative type of a porous substrate material on the basis of a reaction formed SiC for DPF applications. The high porosity, large pore size inside the cell wall and low specific weight are the special characteristics of this substrate. The aim of the current paper is to present an investigation based on the experimental and modeling approaches to evaluate the back pressure, filtration efficiency and the thermal durability. The latter one was assessed by measuring and predicting the temperature field, as well as calculating the thermal stresses. For this purpose the filter was modeled in the commercial computational code axitrap as a stand-alone tool, in which the conservation equations of mass continuity, momentum, energy and species were solved. The soot filtrations, loading as well as the regeneration by fuel-borne catalyst were modeled.

The current paper describes a methodology for combustion bowl assessment for diesel engines. The methodology is based on the application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) following a Design of Experiments (DoE) procedure. In this work the 3D CFD simulation was performed by the commercial CFD code AVL-FIRE for different combustion bowls from intake valve closing (IVC) to exhaust valve opening (EVO). The initial conditions (at IVC) and boundary conditions were obtained from 1D simulation. Since the work was concentrated on the spray injection, mixing, combustion as well as bowl aerodynamics only a sector mesh was employed for the calculations. A DoE procedure was also used for this simulation work in order to minimize the number of simulation runs and at the same time maintaining the accuracy required assessing the influences of different bowl geometry, spray and intake air motion parameters.

A theoretical investigation is presented concerning how the heat transfer process from the gas in the combustion chamber, burned as well as the unburned gas regions, to the walls is affected by the autoignition phenomenon in SI engines. The zonal model in ref. [1] is adapted for the calculations. The radiative heat flux during the heat release period and the heat transfer in the thermal boundary layer by convection are predicted for situations when autoignition has occurred. The cylinder wall temperature is also used as a parameter in this study. The effects of engine operating parameters such as engine speed, timing of ignition, duration time of flame propagation and the fuel parameter Research Octane Number, i.e., RON, on the heat flux to the walls have been studied. The heat release is calculated for a detailed chemical kinetic model, refs. [1, 2 and 3].

This paper reports an one–dimensional modeling procedure of the hot spot autoignition with a detailed chemistry and multi–species transport in the end gas in an SI engine. The governing equations for continuity of mass, momentum, energy and species for an one–dimensional, unsteady, compressible, laminar, reacting flow and thermal fields are discretized and solved by a fully implicit method. A chemical kinetic mechanism is used for the primary reference fuels n–heptane and iso–octane. This mechanism contains 510 chemical reactions and 75 species. The change of the cylinder pressure is calculated from both flame propagation and piston movement. The turbulent velocity of the propagating flame is modeled by the Wiebe function. Adiabatic conditions, calculated by minimizing Gibb's free energy at each time step, are assumed behind the flame front in the burned gas.

A zero-dimensional, three-zone model is developed in order to study the gas thermodynamic characteristics and its relation to knock in SI engines. The first zone is the zone behind the flame front, i.e. the burned gas products. The second zone is the unburned gas ahead of the flame front. The end gas adjacent to the wall, in the boundary layer, is not included in the second zone but it is treated as a separate zone, i.e. the third zone. A detailed analysis of the gas thermodynamic state, including heat transfer analysis between the zones and the walls and mass transfer analysis between the zones combined with a detailed chemical kinetic mechanism in each zone have been performed. The effects of piston movement, flame propagation and transient behavior of the thermal boundary layer are modeled. A sudden rise of pressure and temperature and associated heat release in the end gas are calculated if autoignition occurs.